


No Going Back

by somethingclever



Series: Tim IS a caring and nurturing person. [6]
Category: Justified
Genre: Family, Found Family, M/M, mentions of animal death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-18 10:00:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11288952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingclever/pseuds/somethingclever
Summary: Art didn't know he needed to look for Tim until it was too late, and his beloved powder keg had already exploded.He knows what happens when a guard dog gets a taste for blood, and it isn't pretty. There's no going back from a killing.





	No Going Back

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the next installment of my series! (Which I really need to rename - any recommendations?) There are several more installments to come, by the way, so keep an eye out!

By the time Art knew he should be worried about him- more worried- Tim was gone, leaving nothing but a half-full storage unit, an uncashed security deposit check, and a mailbox crammed full of useless mail.  
  
Had he signed up for every possible magazine and catalogue? Since when did he like cats?  
  
Going up the food chain yielded nothing but a resigned (fired) Lexington chief deputy, and Art took satisfaction in that, if nothing else.  If you can't prevent an injury, revenge it.  Too late to save Tim's future, wherever he was, but he could ruin the one who'd ruined him.  
  
He should have seen that coming, though.  
  
He reached out to the VA, and even when he got a receptionist sympathetic to his plight, nothing.  
  
Tim was gone.  
  
Rachel didn't know where he was, and Raylan wouldn't if she didn't.  He was six months behind on this trail, but he'd followed colder.  
  
He just prayed he would find him alive.  
  
It was another six months before he got a lead.  An old friend came by for coffee, and Art poured them bourbon, instead.  She'd found Tim, and Art looked at the file of confirmed kills in heartbreak.  What was Tim thinking? He was better than this... but he was good at it, Art had to admit. "Thank you, Shelley."  
  
"I'm sorry the news isn't better, Art," she said, "But he's kept clean enough that no American prosecutor would touch him.  This one in particular," she tapped a file, "Would have earned him another medal, if he was still military instead of-"  
  
"A mercenary," Art snapped, "He is what he is, and this..." he shook his head.  Fool boy. His powder keg had blown up when nobody was looking.  Art should have been looking.  
  
"He's terminated all contracts, Art. Word on the street is, he's retiring."  
  
And they believed that? Really? "My grandfather," Art said, "Was a farmer. He had a fine guard dog. Best in the county, people paid ten dollars- quite a bit, for a dog back then- for his pups.  Then he got a taste of sheep one time," Art held up one finger, waved it in remembered pain and anger, "And it was over, pfft.  He never killed any of my grandfather's sheep, he was too smart for that, but their neighbor couldn't figure out what was killing his animals, until he caught Shep out there at two am." He shook his head, "There's no fixing," he waved a hand at the photographs, "That. Once it starts."  
  
"Art..."  
  
"Thanks for the info."

Art stewed and fumed and drank a fourth of a bottle by himself, and went to talk to the one person who would know what to do about this: Leslie.  
  
Leslie listened, and cried a little- she'd loved his Marshals as much as he had, and she'd had a soft place in her heart for Tim- and sat back, wiping her eyes.  
  
"What do I do?"  
  
"I think you should talk to him," she said, "Art, he's gotta be so hurt."  
  
"He's gotta be hurt?" Art said, "Thirty-five _more_ on top of-"  
  
"You think he doesn't feel it?" She asked, "If he didn't, you wouldn't be worried."  
  
"I'm worried because he _does,_ and he'll start lashing out from it," Art growled.  
  
"You and I both know there's only one more person Tim had bullets for, if he's truly quit even… even _that_ ," Leslie said firmly, "And they're for himself."

Art did know that, and dreaded it.

*

So the hunt started up again, and it took him a good while longer to find him again- he vented his frustration to Raylan, finally, leaning back in his chair and spewing wrath about his youngest and now most troublesome- Raylan was suspiciously quiet.  
  
"Raylan?"  
  
"I'm listening. Weaselly, probably a psychopath, drunken, over-confident-"  
  
"What do you know?"  
  
"Well, Art, I'm hurt you didn't ask me. I've know where Tim is all this past year."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Come on down to Miami, Art."

Art went down to Miami with Leslie, more than half-expecting Winona and Raylan to be on again when he saw a second car in the driveway and pulled in behind it.  Raylan opened the door, grinning at him like he was happy and relaxed and half-drunk although Art could tell by the smell and his eyes as he gave him a brief backslapping hug that he wasn't.  
  
"C'mon," he said, "Everybody's in back."  
  
Leslie complimented the furniture and the Marshal in Art needed to see where everyone was, so he went straight to the back of the two-bedroom one-bath condominium, which opened into a courtyard. Winona wasn't there, but Willa was paddling her feet at the edge of the pool, chattering at a man holding a little boy, which made the dad in him shriek- Raylan, you can't leave just anybody with your kid by the pool!  
  
He looked at Tim twice before he saw him, realized who he was, in the father holding his son upside down from the ankles as the child squealed in delight, reaching back up to grab onto his father's wrists.  He only saw him because Tim held his gaze and Art registered the deep tan and lighter hair, big grin and shorts with a tank top.  
  
"Tim?"

"Hi, Art," Tim said, flipping the little boy up with his wrists and catching him under the arms deftly- shit, that took strength and coordination and scared the piss out of Art, "Raylan said you'd been looking for me, sorry I..." he waved a hand, "Didn't... I wasn't in a good place?"  
  
"Gain!" The little boy shouted- he looked to be about a year and some, and Art struggled with the math on that one.  He'd have had to have him during that op in one of the -istans, and the boy didn't look at all middle eastern.  "Da, gain!"  
  
"It'll addle your brains, honey, no," Tim said, and Art's entire world came to a grinding halt to hear Tim-the-asshole call somebody that tiny 'honey' and mean it, and for somebody that _tiny_ to call him 'da' and mean that...  
  
It clashed with the memory of slaughter and Shep.

"What..."  
  
"Oh, Tim!" Leslie swooped past him, opening her arms to hug Tim, who offered his son as a sacrifice to her aggressive maternal instincts.  "Oh, and who is this little one? What's your name?"  
  
Tim froze, and the baby beamed at Leslie, hugging her back, "Arrie."  
  
"Art-ie," Willa came over to them, bold and loud like her mama, as Leslie blinked in shock, "Artie's still learning to talk, but I can figure him out. Mostly."  
  
"Whose..." Leslie looked around, certain he belonged to a neighbor, surely, or-  
  
"He's my son," Tim said, "Um, his name's, it's Arthur."

"We call 'im Artie," Raylan spoke up, grinning like a fiend, and Art looked over at him before deciding that he needed to sit the hell down.  
  
"You didn't tell him?" Tim glared at Raylan.  
  
"Nope," Raylan said.  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"This was more fun."  
  
"You," Tim growled, "Are an a-s-s-h-o-l-e."  
  
"Asshole," Willa chirped, "That's what that spells, right? Mom said-"  
  
Tim groaned, "Nothing's Safe with you Givenses," and Art couldn't help but laugh until he about cried.

*

Later, after dinner and the kids were in bed, they sat on Raylan's back porch and Art got to grill Tim. "How do you have a kid?" He led off with.  
  
"Well," Tim said, "I grew a patch of cabbage and one morning I went out and there he was, cute as could be. Could hardly let- Raylan if you pour that water on me there'll be trouble and you'll regret it!- I adopted him, Art."  
  
"Who the hell would gi- ow!" Leslie kicked his leg under the table.  
  
"He seems like a real nice little boy, is what Art's trying to say," Leslie smiled, "You love him, and it shows."  
  
Tim smiled at her and shrugged at Art's aborted question, "I don't have a record or do drugs, and I'm financially stable, I have housing... government doesn't look beyond that, and most private folks don't either."  
  
And he'd named him Arthur. Arthur Ray, apparently, and if Art weren't so set on being pissed at Tim for throwing away all the ground he'd gained as a Marshal, well, he'd be tickled pink and flattered.  
  
Raylan leaned back in his chair, and tilted his head, "Artie's calling you."  
  
Tim was out of his chair in a split and on his way up the stairs.  All semblance of casuality went out of Raylan and Leslie at the same time. "Art," Raylan said, "He's paid enough for it."  
  
"Don't you dare," Leslie hissed at him, "Upset that boy into not letting us see that sweet little baby. You hear me, Art Mullen?"  
  
Sweet mother of god, he was outnumbered. "Are neither of you bothered in the least by-"  
  
"Not my place to be bothered," Raylan said, "But you know where my goddamn place is? Holdin' him up when he's upset because the man he looks up to most in this goddamn world is spitting on what he's killed himself to get. He's stable, he's happy. He loves that little boy, and… and I guarantee you, before this?" He waved a hand to encompass the room, the upstairs, and himself, "We were talking in terms of months’ life expectancy, not years.  I don’t know how to put it any plainer, Art, but he was gonna kill himself."

Art folded his arms, "You can't possibly know-"  
  
"He told me," Raylan said flatly, "Well, he tried to. I didn't need to know, and you used to know when you didn't need to know. Might wanna remember that.  Tim might let you keep taking digs at him, but I sure as hell won't, Art."  
  
"Honey," Leslie said, "You said it yourself, he's a good man. And now he's a happy one. Be happy for him."  
  
Fine. _Fine_.  
  
Wait. "You two are together?" He gaped at Raylan, "Raylan, tell me that did not start in my office!"  
  
"I dunno, Art," Tim said, coming back down, "That couch was mighty comfy... he's asleep, Raylan."  
  
"Is he? Must be hearing things."  
  
"You're going deaf," Tim said flatly, flopping back beside Raylan but smiling as he looked at him. Raylan slid a hand along his spine to rub a thumb along the back of his neck, Tim pressing into it with an expression of pleasure.  
  
"Congratulations," Art said, and meant it, "So, when does Artie get to come spend a weekend with grandpa Art?"  


**Author's Note:**

> Please, PLEASE comment.


End file.
